


Juno Steel and the Great Ransom Rescue

by stubborn_jerk



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Art, Established Relationship, Families of Choice, Fluff and Humor, Footnotes, Gen, Haunted Houses, M/M, Other, Rescue, Spooky, The Penumbra Podcast Season 3, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27064225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubborn_jerk/pseuds/stubborn_jerk
Summary: Most rescue missions require three components.First: the rescuee. In this case, it was one Peter Nureyev.Second: the rescuers. With Juno was his not-secretary best friend Rita, and their pilot, mechanic, and giant mutual friend Jet Sikuliaq.Lastly: the complication, the one that even forced components first and second into existence.You see, Peter Nureyev had a lot of enemies...
Relationships: Jet Sikuliaq & Juno Steel, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Rita & Juno Steel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 48
Collections: Trans Nureyev Agenda Server Minibang!





	Juno Steel and the Great Ransom Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> this one's for the special edition Trans Nureyev Agenda Server Bang!
> 
> providing the art for me on this fic are [jeannette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/entropyre/pseuds/entropyre) and [clover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linktopus/pseuds/linktopus). link to their socials and where you can share their art in the end notes.
> 
> if you're familiar with good omens by neil gaiman and terry pratchett, you're good to go on footnotes. if you're not, just follow the asterisks! i didn't put them in actual clickable footnotes so they're a lot easier to read.
> 
> enjoy!

Juno Steel had been a detective for around twenty years, as a cop and as a private investigator. Nearly two decades of experience was the only reason he knew that upon docking on that asteroid, this was not going to be the easiest rescue mission.

Not that he expected it to be.

See, most rescue missions require three components.

First: the rescuee.* In this case, it was one Peter Nureyev.**

[*The person to be rescued? The victim? The person in distress?

**Active alias: Peter Ransom. Other aliases included Dark Matters Agent Rex Glass, Art Thief Duke Rose, Monsieur P. Dauphin, and many more.*** 

***If your Peter Nureyev exhibits signs of abject bitchiness, bastardry, and/or disappears abruptly, please contact your local ex-detective.]

Second: the rescuers. With Juno was his not-secretary best friend, Rita, and their pilot, mechanic, and giant mutual friend Jet Sikuliaq. They were chosen specifically on the off chance of: 

  * Jet and Juno facing a problem related to hacking; 
  * Juno and Rita needing to make a nasty quick escape; or 
  * Jet and Rita needing a quick thinker in a sticky situation.*



[*Buddy’s words, not Juno’s. It is important that this is clear because any discerning listener will know that Juno Steel thought of himself as slower than most days on Venus.]

Lastly: the complication, the one that even forced components first and second into existence.

You see, Peter Nureyev had a lot of enemies.

He wasn’t special.

On a ship like the Carte Blanche that harbored six legends from both sides of the law, each collectively had enemies in spades, whether intentional or not. Nureyev’s roster, because of multiple aliases having made multiple enemies, accumulated more than half of their enemy population.

It was just Nureyev’s luck that despite his distant professionalism with the crew, half of its remaining members liked him enough to plan contingencies for situations like a kidnapping.

And it was just Buddy’s luck that she had Juno’s thinking on her side as well,* because her first plan when they got the message was, frankly, a lot messier than Juno thought it was going to be: go after him ASAP.

[*Again. Buddy’s words.]

That morning, the Carte Blanche docked on an asteroid (that Juno forgot the name of) for about a couple hours, resupplying and doing routine checkups on the engines. For the most part, Nureyev wasn’t in charge of anything that day,* so he wandered off to pickpocket some hapless rando or wreak havoc or whatever. Juno didn’t know.

[*This was because in the few weeks they’ve been hopping from asteroid to asteroid towards Jupiter, the whole crew had been readily informed by a couple of fire scares and messes that Peter Nureyev, intergalactically wanted master thief, was incapable of a lot of domestic activity.]

The one thing Juno did know when they got the ransom video through the ship’s comms line, was that Nureyev was going to be fine. The kidnappers had brought him to an asteroid belt about several hours away, but Juno was sure he was safe.

“We need to get him home as soon as possible,” Buddy said, looming over the table. There was no room for argument in her tone, and that was fine. Juno wasn’t going to argue with her, he was just going to say something.

“How ready are we to go after him?” She asked Jet.

Jet shook his head, which meant they were about as ready as Rita was at around six in the morning.* This made Buddy look incredibly displeased.

[*Which was around the time she normally slept.]

“He’s gonna be fine,” Juno said.

Buddy inclined her head at him, putting a hand to her hip. “I admire your faith and I’m sure he will appreciate it, but I’m not willing to gamble that much.”

Juno shook his head. “No, you don’t get it. He’s fine. Ransom’s escaped Hyperion cops more competent than the idiots who nabbed him. If he hasn’t already taken their ship from them, he’s just playing the long game.”

“For what?” Vespa spat, an intimidatingly sharp knife glinting in her hand. “Stop being cryptic and just say it.”

Juno wasn’t really being cryptic, nor did he appreciate the thinly veiled threat.* He had no way to prove any of what he’d said. It was just that his best friend had been glancing at him periodically throughout the meeting trying and failing to get any of their attention since they stopped watching the ransom video.

[*A miscalculation of measurements for Juno Steel, really. It wasn’t veiled at all.]

With a shrug, Juno gestured for Rita to speak up. She grinned and brought her comms around for Buddy and Vespa to lean in.

“What Mista Steel is sayin’ is… Well, he’s not exactly sayin’ it. But! The goons who grabbed Mistah Ransom are from the Greek belt. They’re called The Stable. Y’know ‘cause the Trojan Horse? Like they did in Matrix 5: The Firewall except instead of viruses–ooh! Or people! Like they did in Dunepiercer, that one movie about the Free Dome, remember, Mista Steel—”

Juno nodded. “Yeah, that was pretty good. I still can’t believe the fish made it into that remake.”

Vespa sent him a glare. Juno pretended not to notice her.*

[*Her knife, though, he did still notice.]

“Right? Remind me to set it up soon. But maybe when Mista Ransom gets here. Ooh! Okay, where was I? Oh. So, instead of all that, the Stable deals in stolen art.”

“Art?” Buddy scoffed, thoroughly unimpressed. “I’ve never heard of this Stable.”

Rita waved her hands. “That’s just the thing! They’re like if the underground had their own underground, y’know? I checked their finances and it took some diggin’ but the thing is that they’re not just dealin’ with any rich folk within the inner Solar System, they’re dealin’ with the rich folk here in the Trojan Belt!”*

[*Within Inner Sol’, there were three groups of asteroid belts: the Greeks, the Trojans, and the Hildas. 

After colonizing Mars, people migrated farther out. Scientists and researchers alike settled on the Greek and the Hilda belts. The progenitors of what was now the Solar Government, however, settled and populated the Trojan belt. And that was where they stayed and stayed in power for centuries even now, after the War.]

Vespa sneered. “So they’re bootlickers,” she deadpanned.

“Equal opportunists, Mista Ransom would say,” Rita pointed out. Being Rita, she said this as ‘ee-kwol op-a-tunists.’

“He’s told you about them?” Juno asked, taken aback. “When?”

She shrugged. “You were sleepin’ in and I was curious.”

Knowing Rita, that could have been whenever, so Juno shook his head and brought his attention back to the matter at hand. “Right, so the... Stable, wow, they should have workshopped that name. They’re financially secure and only really underground because they’ve been brown-nosing.”

“Ew,” Rita chimed in.

Juno continued, looking at Buddy. “Ransom’s been in tougher spots before. He can deal with a few art smugglers.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you’re making it out to be, darling,” Buddy deadpanned.

He sighed. “Okay, fine–”

“But,” she cut in. “I trust your judgment. Of all of us, you’ve worked with Peter the most. And if you think he’s capable of escaping this, I’ll give you that. So, what’s your plan?”

The plan… 

Juno didn’t have one, to be honest. He was quick to think of one on the fly though.* He gave Buddy something vague, Buddy didn’t ask for concrete details, and they were off.

[*It was a skill he’d honed to ensure that he graduated from the academy. Most teachers didn’t really care, but Juno liked his evidence linked by actual rational thought, thanks very much.]

They got to the Stable asteroid around seven hours later. Not like Juno was counting or anything.*

[*He was. Down to the second, actually.]

Juno sighed, kneading at his right cheek, right below the new fitting for his glass eye. “Rita, why are all the lights off?”

Rita hopped out of the Ruby, letting Juno shut the door after her.

She considered the manor, humming. She pulled out her keyboard and sat down to do… something. 

Honestly, Juno didn’t know and had no intention of finding out just as long as he got answers. He mostly asked because, as mentioned, the Stable HQ’s lights were off. More importantly, the landing bay was empty. 

Most crime syndicates’ headquarters were never vacant. Juno’s had too many scuffles and scars from the past just to prove it.* “Have the alarms gone off in the past few hours?” Juno asked.

[*He hadn’t paused to consider, of course, that it might have had more to say about the severity of crimes in Hyperion City than it did about the Stable’s lax in security.**

**He also hadn’t paused to consider that maybe he shouldn’t have been strolling into crime syndicates’ headquarters by himself to even earn those scars.]

Jet pocketed the key to the Ruby. “That still wouldn’t explain why the entrance is empty.”

“That’s assuming they’re smart enough not to send everyone in there,” Juno mumbled. “C’mon. Rita?”

Rita shook her head, typing in a speed that made Juno worry about her wrist again.* He felt around his pockets and sighed in relief when he felt her wrist brace in one of the deeper pockets of his coat.

[*Steel Detective Agency Expense Report Year 5 had medical insurance as its top priority. The boss had insisted. HR wasn’t too hunky-dory about it.]

“I had to check the footage remotely,” Rita said, voice serious. “The guards ran in a while ago, then the alarm turned off thirty minutes later. Nobody else has gone out since.” She looked up at Juno and Jet, looking just the tiniest bit fearful. “It’s pretty spooky. Like an episode of The Terror Catalogs.” Her look crossed from the tiniest bit to just about scared shitless. “Ooh, M-m-mista Steeeeel! Mista Steel, what if it’s worms?”

Juno snorted but could feel the hair on his arms rise at the mention of worms. He never should have let her convince him into watching that stream. “Quit it, it’s not worms, Rita.”

“This may be his doing,” Jet said, walking ahead.*

[*Him, of course, being Nureyev.]

Juno followed after Rita got up from her seat.

There were scuff marks on the floor from a lot of somethings with wheels, or maybe just one something over and over again. Shoe polish streaks here and there, indicating a lot of dress shoe types walking around. No blood.* 

[*Juno was thankful for that. He'd had a heavy breakfast that morning, owing to waking up late, and he would like to keep it until it digested.]

Rita unlocked the main dome gates for them. She wasn't any less concerned as the door slid shut behind them, sealing them off from Ruby. “But. But why wouldn’t Mista Ransom just call ahead to say he’s fine?" She asked. "He knows Mista Steel’s comms signal by heart. Right, boss?”

Juno blinked.

Nureyev did?*

[*Yes, Nureyev actually did. But not for any romantic reasons like to any conclusions Juno was jumping to at that moment. Mostly that Nureyev was meticulously anal about his jobs.]

“Uh,” he said intelligently. “Yeah. I–I knew that. But uh, remember, I found his comms in his room a few hours ago.”

“Oh, right. Darn.”

Jet didn’t respond to any of this, as he usually didn’t respond to things he didn’t know the answer to. He was polite like that, Juno found eventually. Just had to get used to it a little.*

[*He had to get used to being less sarcastic around Jet too, an exercise he didn't think was going to be soothing when he started it. It was a shame they didn't have much to talk about, really.]

The front door, once they got to the steps, was one of the most pretentious things Juno had seen in his life, and he’d seen a lot.* It was ornate and wooden, inlaid with golden designs, and likely more expensive than the entire Carte Blanche. Juno glared at it as Jet pushed it open for them, shoving down some mildly juvenile urges.**

[*One such pretentious thing was the Kanagawa twins’ b-mitzvahs, both of which he was invited to, neither of which were in the same building or same end of Hyperion City. Juno always thought the dry ice sculptures of themselves were… a choice they could make, technically.

**His bladder was empty, fortunately.]

It creaked, in a bad vintage horror stream kind of way. He wished it didn't make a shiver run down his spine but he had little choice in the matter. The lights were also off inside, which didn't help. 

To himself, he said, you have got to be kidding me. Out loud, he said, "I am not going in first."

_Bee-bee-beep!_

Juno jumped. 

Rita yelped. 

Jet answered his comms.

" _Still in one piece, darlings?_ "

Juno felt the fear seep out of him and annoyance replace it, a reflex emotion. He held his tongue* and let Jet do the talking for them.

[*A herculean effort. Apart from two decades of detective work backing his experience, mouthing off was a skill he had since birth. Since leaving Hyperion, he’s been working on being less… insubordinate. With interesting results.]

“Yes. We’ve just entered the facility. We have not run into anyone since we arrived,” Jet reported, stepping inside the… manor.* Even just beyond the threshold, one could see the carpeted floor and the frames decorating the walls of the hall leading into the place.

[*All things considered, it really was a state of the art manor, full of unnecessary and high brow embellishments. Considering what it housed, Juno was reluctant to call it that. For a brief moment, Juno wondered if Rita got the address wrong. She hadn’t, he knew, but he still couldn’t believe this was a smuggler’s headquarters.]

“ _Well, we’ll take that as a win. I’d rather you lot be as visibly unnerved as Juno is than in trouble._ ” Juno blinked, then glared at the pleased hologram showing Buddy’s face. “ _Blaster clips could be so expensive this far out-system and I would appreciate it if all four of you don’t come back injured._ ”

“ _If any of you get injured because of something stupid, I’m not helping,_ ” Vespa called in.

“ _Yes, you are, Vespa dear._ ”

Rita followed after Jet. Juno had no choice but to shut the door behind them. He was careful not to slam it shut just to avoid the terrible squeaking.

Static came over their call as soon as the door clicked shut. “ _Oh_ ,” Buddy said over the noise. “ _That may cause some problems. There’s a signal jammer in there, I think. Call back when it’s possible, dearest one?_ ”

“Of course, Buddy,” Jet responded.

Muffled but no less audible, Vespa cut in, “ _And if he refuses to come back, just leave his skinny ass. It's one less mouth to feed._ ”

“ _Vespa, if Pete refuses to come, I will **have** to have a word with him as he just wasted our resources._”

Juno couldn’t help but snort at that. 

“ _Something funny, Steel?_ ”

Juno from a few months ago would have risen to the bait and parried with something funny. In fact, Juno from a week ago had. But that wasn’t the case today. No, the case today was that Juno had to get Nureyev back onto the Carte Blanche so he shook his head. “Nothing. We’ll make sure to find him.”

Jet hung up before Vespa could get a word in edgewise.

And they were, once again, plunged into darkness, save for Jet and Rita’s comms.

* * *

* * *

“You’d think art smugglers would have better security or at least a backup generator,” Juno muttered, finally bringing his own comms out for light as they continued on.* “Pretty stupid of all those Trojan politicians to put their trust on an op this shabby.”

[*It took some fiddling before Rita realized Juno had no idea how to do it himself.]

From what he could see in the dark, the main hall looked like a gallery.* Framed canvases and statuettes and self-sustaining hard-light sculptures lined the corridor, giving an eerie, dim glow. Juno thought they all looked incredibly shabby.** In the darkness, they gave Juno’s heebies jeebies and he did not like it one bit.

[*And maybe that was what the entire manor was for, an entire gallery of stolen art. Still, it wasn’t as impressive as showcasing stolen art at a Hoosegow Release Party but hey, some operations had to try.

**One may take this opinion with a grain of salt, as Juno himself was a known collector of bad art. There is no debating the subjectivity of beauty but it is a matter of fact that Juno Steel’s subjective opinion of art was just wrong, period.]

There was a dull thud and what sounded like shuffling on the carpet that came from somewhere in the dark. 

Juno did not jump or yelp.*

[*False, on both accounts.] 

Rita screamed. 

“Wh-what was that?” she stammered, clutching at Juno’s coat.

“I do not know.”

Juno cleared his throat. “We’ll have to see. Let’s keep moving. Rita, do you have the floor plans?”

She sent him a shaky thumbs up and waved her comms around.*

[*Whether she was waving it around or her entire arm was trembling is unknown.]

Juno inclined his head at her when she didn’t do much apart from that. “Youuuu wannaaaa… give ‘em to us, Rita?”

Rita squawked, affronted. “I can read a floor plan, Mista Steel!”

It seemed like her fear was forgotten just then.

Juno stifled a grin. “That’s great, Rita, but this manor’s pretty dark and you kinda walk fast sometimes when you get really excited. I dunno… you might end up getting pretty far ahead of us, all alone in the dark and—”

Another thud. Juno hated that it made him flinch too. Jet watched them, impassive.

“I suggest you two decide before whatever that is finds us,” Jet said, which helped Juno’s case but not really his own fears.

Except Rita handed her comms over to Jet. “H-here, Mista Jet, you lead the way.”

“Thank you, Rita, but I do not know where we’re going.”

Juno harrumphed. It smarted a bit, not being trusted with the map considering Rita’s track record of getting him lost in straight hallways before, but he wasn’t going to put up a fuss about it. “Control room. We need to get Rita an uplink so she can put the power back on and turn off that jammer. Right?”

“Wow, Mista Steel, you really have been payin’ attention.”

Juno gawked after her as Jet led on. “Excuse you, I always pay attention!”*

[*Objectively, this was true. Due in part to Rita's lack of brain-to-mouth filter and Juno’s tendency to note details from people important to him, Juno paid attention when Rita spoke. The hangup was on whether or not Juno really understood what she was talking about.]

“Sure you do.”

“I’ve tracked it, stay close,” Jet said before Juno could argue.

They traipsed through the darkness like that, bouts of silence interrupted by random dull thuds and shufflings on carpeted floor that had Juno and Rita waving their lights around wildly. It must have been a test of Jet’s patience, having the two of them trail behind, bickering in agitated whispers and murmurs.*

[*In reality, their paranoia was setting Jet’s off as well. At the moment, he was thinking about whatever exercise or distraction he may need to do later on to brave the darkness he usually plunged his room in before bed.]

The hall was littered with art and there laid the trouble because art is terrifying in the dark.

Paintings on well-preserved canvases—often portraits of people long dead— littered the corridor, their mile-long gazes eerily looking as if they were tracking the trio. 

Statues cast human-like figures in the dark, giving Juno the occasional scare when he pointed his light their way. 

There were a few beacons of light interspersed with the odd art pieces, glow in the dark paintings, or more self-sustaining hard light sculptures. 

The one that had Rita clutching at both Juno’s coat and Jet’s fingers with her eyes shut tight was a motion sensor hologram.

It was just beginning to feel like it was a set to a horror stream or a well-done horror place like the ones in Y2K fairs until Juno almost bowled them all over when Jet stopped abruptly in the middle of the corridor.

“We are here.”

‘Here’, from Juno’s perspective, was a door that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. 

Jet held the floor plans on Rita’s comms clear out of Juno’s line of sight,* so he had no idea if they’d passed other rooms and he hadn’t noticed or if this was the first room they came across since entering the building. Either way, it irked him to be making such rookie mistakes.

[*Being the second shortest on the Carte Blanche wasn’t always annoying, but times like these made Juno want to be petty about so many things.]

“Great, the door to the control room, closed,” he deadpanned. “While the power’s out.”

“Can it open?” Rita asked, peeking around Jet’s legs.

Jet turned to hand her comms back. “I will check if I can use my comms to open it. If not, I will have to force it open. Please step back.”

Juno and Rita took several steps back.

Another couple thuds rang out through the hall, this time closer to them. 

Juno and Rita took a few steps closer to Jet again.

“That sounded close,” Juno muttered, mostly to ride out his terror. His hand was gripping his arm, where the new plasma knife he got from Buddy was sewn into his sleeve. “A little too close for comfort. You think you can work any faster, Jet?”

“I can only work as fast as I can,” was Jet’s strained response.*

[*One may note that Jet’s hands were shaking imperceptibly as he unscrewed the lid on the door pad.]

By Juno’s hip, Rita was almost trembling. “D-d-don’t check it out, Mista Steel, please.”

Juno scoffed but didn’t look away from the darkness ahead of them. “Of course I’m not gonna check it out, I don’t even know how many of them there are.”

Rita’s fear drained out of her voice just then, replaced with annoyance. “You say that like you ain’t done it a hundred times over! I’ll say, ‘Boss, most of those goons are bigger an’ heavier than you, you can’t possibly take them on,’ then you go in blaster blazin’ like you’re Jupiter Jones and you’re the reincarnation of some intergalactic empress. An’ you’d go ‘See, Rita? I’m fine!’ and I’ll tell ya, ‘Ooh! My little heart can’t take this–’”

Juno turned and put a hand on his hip. “Alright, I get it. Look, I’m not gonna be able to go in blasters blazing like I’m 30 anymore. I’m down an eye, remember?”

“Oh.”

“‘Sides, Vespa’s probably gonna do something worse to me if I let some nameless goon or whatever’s down the ha—”

Another thud, loud.

Rita and Juno yelped.

“Juno, Rita.”

“What?” They both snapped up at Jet.

Jet said, “It is open.”

Juno and Rita’s gazes were drawn into the yawning darkness of the control room entrance then, after a moment, to Jet’s back as he entered the room ahead of them. 

“Oh,” they said, then fumbled into following upon hearing yet another thud.

The control room looked eerier than most control rooms Juno had ever been in, and that was saying something.* Maybe it was amplified by the mysterious thudding in the dark halls or the fact that Juno felt adrift with the small amount of control he had over this situation. Or the way that his comms light couldn’t seem to penetrate the darkness inside the room at all.**

[*Mostly because he’d almost died in quite a few of them before, and not even those were eerie.

**This, of course, was because his comms display lights were set on auto adjust and he didn’t know it could do that.]

With purpose, Rita strode to the console and clambered onto the seat.* Jet, it seemed, was already hooked up to it, trying to boot it up remotely to get Rita started. Juno walked around the room to try and feel less useless.

[*Well, with as much purpose as one could get when they were scared shitless.]

There wasn’t much. A lot of notes and codes here and there. There was a table in the back with a whiteboard hanging over it. A coffee maker and filters, mugs, sugar, and milk took most of the tablespace. The board had all the security details and the rotation schedules in meticulous handwriting.

Juno checked his watch, then squinted up at the chart.

“So, no understaffing,” he muttered, noting the seven guards per wing and rotation. “Then where the hell did they go?”

Juno turned to see Rita already working hard on the keyboard while Jet hovered beside her, looking at him. Had it been that long since he last looked at them or did they just work fast?*

[*He was too busy squinting up at a dimly lit whiteboard, trying to read everything on it _and_ they worked fast.]

“Did you find anything?” asked Jet.

“Yeah, just a bunch of charts and stuff,” Juno dismissed. There wasn’t anything concrete yet, but something was wrong here and he was going to figure out how it was.* “What about you guys?”

[*Part of the twenty-year experience of detective work included mastering the art of not jumping to conclusions. Or explaining things to people who would jump to conclusions. Not that Jet would, of course, but it was the principle of the thing.]

"I found…" Rita trailed off, typing rapidly at the controls. With a flourish, she clicked the last button, saying, "This!"

And the lights flickered on. Juno shut his eye on reflex, hissing, "Geez, give a guy some warning next time."

"There ain’t gonna be no next time, Boss, that’s silly,” Rita said, glancing at him incredulously. “It’s not like Mista Ransom’s gonna get kidnapped again sometime in the future, he ain’t that bald guy from Journey to the West Part 80: I Swear We’ll Finish This Someday, he’s Mista Ransom!”

“No, I meant— never mind.”

One by one, the monitors on the wall before them came on with subtle clicks and hums. They showed numerous halls and break rooms and showrooms and a ballroom.

“He’s gotta be in here somewhere,” Juno muttered as he leaned over Rita’s shoulder. “Unless he’s somewhere without a camera. Rita,” he said this louder. “Does this manor have a PA system?”

Rita hummed. “Hold on—”

“I do not recommend that action,” Jet interrupted. Rita stopped, then looked over her shoulder at Juno.

Juno crossed his arms. “Why not?”

“There are three of us and an unknown number of kidnappers,” he explained. “It is likely we will only call attention to ourselves if we announce our presence.”

Jet was right.

Juno bit at the inside of his cheek. That really only left one other option. “So we go look for him,” he relented.

“Good luck!” Rita said. “I’ll stay here.”

“What.”

“I do not think that’s a good idea either,” Jet offered.

Rita huffed. “Alright, you mother hens. I’m stayin’ here in case you two need to check where you ain’t checked yet. I’m gonna try and get the signal jammer down so we can get Miss Vespa and Captain A too.”

Jet and Juno looked at each other.

Juno felt his hackles raise, looking back down at Rita, “What happened to not splitting up? What if someone comes in here?”

“I’d see 'em comin’,” she countered, pointing at the monitor nearest to Juno. “Those two cameras are stationed on either side of this hallway.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll lock the door or somethin’.”

“But—”

“Mista Steel, are you worried about little old me?” she teased.

“No!” Juno snapped.

Rita raised a brow at him.

Juno sighed. “Okay. Yes, I am.”

Rita cooed. “Aw, Boss, that’s sweet! But it’s me, remember? I’m Rrrrita! So you pat your worried little head right back into the hole it climbed out of and leave it to me. You brought your extra blaster with you, right?”

Juno shrugged, staring at the floor. “Yeah, maybe. I got your braces too.”

“You really are just the sweetest, Mista Steel. Hand ‘em over.”

Juno dug through his coat and handed them over. “It’s on stun—”

“I know, Mista Steel.” She put her braces on the desktop.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, Mista Steel.” She checked the setting on the blaster, tested her aim a bit.

“Do you remember how I taught you to—”

“Yes, definitely, absolutely. Mista Jet, please get him outta here before he tries to take these back.”

“Of course,” Jet said, then rallied Juno, protesting, out the door.

“Good luck! Say hi to Mista Ransom for me.”

* * *

It didn’t take long for Rita to unblock the signals, but Jet still wanted them to keep comms lines closed unless completely necessary.

“Wouldn’t Rita just tell us if anyone was coming towards us? Or, I dunno, she could put the system in her comms or something so we won’t have to split up?” Juno asked.* As much as he liked Jet’s company, being in a new place without someone familiar still felt off-putting.

[*Rita couldn’t, but there wasn’t a chance Jet was going to say it to his face.]

“We are heading to the places without cameras, correct?”

Juno looked down at the edited floor plans Rita gave them. “Yeah, but she’d see if they came through. Look, these hallways don’t cover these rooms and the restrooms.”

“Why would anyone hide a captive in the restroom?”

Juno shrugged. “Might be some weird torture tactic, I dunno.”*

[*It has, historically, been a kind of torture tactic.]

Jet didn’t respond to that which, good. Juno wasn’t sure if he wanted to ruin more of his chances at a good impression with Jet considering how they met. He knew Jet already told him he considered Juno a friend, but it just felt like he had to earn it somehow.

Jet opened a door and let Juno in.

It was a showroom.

It was impressive if a little tacky. The windows showed nothing but projected light from the dome, the windows were archaic, with barred and arched forms looming over the room, showy gilded columns and white marble, drapes and tapestries, expensive paintings that must have cost millions of creds. Antique furniture and vases littered the room, each so fragile and useless it could only really be for decoration.

Juno sighed and ticked the room off his mental list. This was the fifth showroom they've seen and he was starting to get a bit tired of the maximalist style of the place. Even the Kanagawas valued some minimalism, at least.*

[*Except, of course, Croesus’ collection rooms and Cecil’s studios.] 

He was about to turn and tell Jet that it was just another dud when he noticed something... off.

The thing was just that Juno was no expert in interior design,* so most people would have taken his observation with a grain of salt. 

[*Once more, Juno Steel is the furthest thing from a good judge of literally any artistic style. Grain of salt, dear reader.]

He squinted up at the mantle at the front of the room and found that there was an imbalance there, likely a missing candleholder. It was a small thing, but it tipped the oversaturated symmetry in the room. 

Juno couldn't quite explain it.

"Juno?"

Juno blinked, then turned. “Yeah, sorry. This room’s clear. Let’s go.”

He stepped out of the room and waited for Jet before walking.

“I do not mind that you feel uncomfortable around me without Rita.”

Juno paused from scrolling through the map and took a second to consider what Jet had said. 

He sighed and looked up at him. “I don’t.”

“You are familiar with each other. It doesn’t hurt me if you admit feeling safer with me when she’s around.”

Juno tried not to clench his jaw too tight for being read so accurately. “Would you say that about me? You seem fine enough without Buddy.”

Instead of answering, Jet opened the door to another room.

Thankful for the pass, Juno peeked in. This time, a table didn’t have a vase on it, looking oddly empty. Other than that, nothing.

Juno ticked it off.

They moved on.

Unfortunately, Jet continued, “I am not scared of you, Juno. And you do not know what I look like when I am not fine.”

A pause.

Juno looked up at Jet. “Jet, are you okay?”

A thud sounded down the hallway, ahead of them.

Jet stopped short at the sound of it right as he was about to open the door to another room. Juno put his comms down, intent on focusing on Jet.

Haltingly, Jet admitted, “I will be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. Buddy was correct to let me come with you here, in case you needed a quick escape, but that does not erase the fact that I am just as afraid as you and Rita are.”

Juno huffed out a laugh, bemused. He didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t that. “Jet, I’ve seen you knock Rasbach out like it was nothing back on Mars. You even asked nonchalantly if you should kill him instead. I think whoever’s making those spooky noises down the hall would be more scared of you than you are of it.”*

[*As the story progresses, the reader must know that the one making the spooky noises down the hall was scared of a lot of things including Jet Sikuliaq in a very specific context that they would rather not talk about.]

“Fear is often irrational, Juno.”

Juno blinked, thinking back to how he met Nureyev as Rex Glass, how even he was jumpy around the slightest noise in the Kanagawa Mansion because of rumors of a ghost of an ancient Martian, out for Juno’s blood after Croesus’ death. “Alright. Point taken.”

Jet opened the room. He checked and found it clear, not a single thing out of place. 

Off the list it went. 

He gestured for Jet to follow, emboldened in his stride when he heard Jet start to catch up. “Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m scared with you. Now come on, let’s go see what’s making that noise.”*

[*Unbeknownst to Juno at that moment, that was actually worth a lot to Jet Sikuliaq. A lot, in fact, that Jet had to sneakily wipe off a tear as soon as Juno turned.]

The noise, the farther they got into the manor, was always a room or two ahead of them. With neither of them being eager to see what was making it, they kept their pace.

They found just one room in the next turn, not a camera in sight. 

Jet took point this time, and when the door slid open, Juno lowered his comms and stood, frozen, at the doorway.

Because the room was not full of pieces or artifacts to showcase, but of bodies. From where he stood he didn’t quite know whether they were dead or not, but every single one of them was wearing a dark suit.

There was no sign of Nureyev’s warm purple get up from that morning.

Jet moved in, kneeling down to feel for one of the goons’ pulse.

Juno held onto the doorframe, peeking in but not daring to enter.

“Are they dead?”

“No,” he said. “Just unconscious.”

“Anyone bleeding?”

“Surprisingly not. Juno, I’m about to ask you a question you might not want me to ask.”

He stepped into the room, poking around stray limbs with the toe of his boot. “Sure thing.”

“If Ransom did not want to be taken back to the Carte Blanche—”

“Alright, okay, that is a question I don’t want you to ask,” Juno interrupted, turning to glare at Jet. “What is your problem?”

“It’s not personal,” Jet said, patting around someone’s pockets and retrieving a few laser carts. “Ransom joined our crime family thinking we were going to do heists and get paid for them regularly. Now that he’s aware that we’re only after a few artifacts, it is not unfounded that he would leave the first chance he got.”

Juno scoffed, crouching to get a few carts himself. “If he only joined for the loot, he wouldn’t have chosen the Carte Blanche specifically. Hell, he wouldn’t have even teamed up with anyone. He could just take a cruise with some socialites to Venus and come back with enough creds to feed an entire asteroid town if it weren’t for his stupid pride about not being some washed-up pickpocket.”

“Exactly.” Jet turned to him, abandoning his task. “The only logical conclusion is that he’d joined knowing that we weren’t going to do regular jobs.”

Juno held a hand up before Jet started making more sense. “You’re just begging the question and jumping to conclusions. We should be focusing on getting him back.”

Jet stood and loomed over him at that moment. Juno wouldn’t put it past him if he wanted to beat some sense into Juno’s pretty little head then and there. He would too.

Instead, and because Jet wasn’t completely deranged, he said, “Call Rita.”

“O-okay,” he said, fumbling to put his blaster and new laser carts back into their proper holsters. He had her on quick dial, and soon, her face was projected out so Jet could see her too.

“ _Heya, Mista Steel. Should I connect Captain A too?_ ”

Jet nodded.

“Sure.”

With a click, Buddy’s face and part of Vespa’s cheek came into the shot. “ _Hello again, darlings. Have you found Ransom yet?_ ”

“Not really, but we… found everyone else?”

“ _You alright, Boss?_ ”

Juno cleared his throat, trying to push the previous conversation out of his head and out of his tone. “Yeah, just. We opened this room and found… all of the people in the manor, I think, and… are they all knocked out?”

“Yes,” Jet said, continuing, “and no sign of the thief.”

Juno scoffed, then laughed.

“ _Mind sharing with the class, Juno?_ ”

“Yeah, Buddy, I kinda do. Look, I’ll see where this’ll lead us. It’ll get us to Ransom before Vespa has to cook dinner anyway so don’t worry.”

“ _What was that?_ ”

“ _He’s right, Vespa dear, if they run late, you’ll have to cook for them._ ”

“ _Oooh, that’s sweet! I haven’t tried Miss Vespa’s cookin’ before!_ ”

“ _And you never will—_ ”

Jet herded Juno to the hall. “Rita, could you please lock that door for us?”

“ _Sure! What hallway are you in?_ ”

“West wing, room seven,” Juno said without looking. “I swear, this whole manor’s built like a maze.”

“ _Aaaaand_ ,” The door beeped behind them. “ _Done!_ ”

Jet thanked her and started heading back the way they came.

“Wait, where are you going?” Juno asked.

Jet stopped. “The west wing is clear.”

Juno shook his head. “What? There’s a whole basement under us, we could just keep looking here.”

“We must clear this floor first.”

Juno huffed. “No, he’s this way.”

Jet inclined his head. “You’re certain?”

“Yeah, trust me. Look, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the last few rooms we’ve been in have been missing a few things. I don’t know if there have been other missing things before those rooms and I didn’t notice, but there’s only one possible answer.”

“ _The brokers could have just sold them_.”

“Right. But all that ruckus has been coming from this direction, and if we found every guard in one room and it’s still—” A thud. Juno gestured behind himself, “Doing that, then that means he’s still around here somewhere.”

Jet considered this.

“ _I dunno, Mista Steel… What if it’s the worms?_ ”

“It’s not the worms, Rita,” he deadpanned.

“ _It could be something else,_ ” Buddy chimed in.

Vespa chuckled. “ _Like a giant dog._ ”

“ _What? Miss Vespa, dogs ain’t big! What are you talkin’ about?_ ”*

[*Dogs, in fact, are not big. Well, on Mars at least. They weren’t any larger than sewer kits, and definitely smaller than most Martian cats. Along with the four mouths thing, they were almost always genetically engineered to be guard dogs you have to be careful to look for before you go trespassing. For scale, they were the size of most common beetles, which are freakishly big on Mars.]

“ _Yes, they are!_ ”

“ _Darlings, we’ll have enough time for this conversation during game night. For now, Jet and Juno need to find Pete. Call us when you need us?_ ”

“Sure, Bud.”

“Yes, Buddy.”

“ _Good luck_.”

* * *

The basement lights were faulty. Because of course, they were faulty.*

[*Most housing systems had automated lights for ease of access, but sometimes, in dire situations on cases before, even the simplest technology failed.]

“That is because the circuits down here are grounded,” Jet explained, waving his comms around for light as they descended.

“Are you sure that’s it or are you just saying that?” Juno asked, a little annoyed but mostly just trying not to tremble too loudly.

Jet did not answer.*

[*He was definitely just saying that.]

“It could just be Ransom,” Juno muttered. “Should we ask Rita if she can see from her end?”

Jet didn’t turn when he said, “If the signal picks up.”

Juno turned his comms around to call her.

After a few rings, there was nothing.

“That’s weird,” Juno said. “Is there a signal jammer down here too?”

“There is not. It is simply just that we are too close to the asteroid’s core.”

“And that’s messing it up?”

“Yes.”

“Damn,” he hissed. He pointed his comms back over Jet’s shoulder, ignoring the way that the strobing was making him feel a bit dizzy. He was just thankful that Jet wasn’t rubbing it in his face about clearing the ground floor first.*

[*Had Jet met him some ten, eleven years ago, he probably would have.]

Thankfully, the hallway at the bottom of the stairs was lit properly and Juno didn’t have to worry about leaving Jet to his own devices because of some migraine. The hallway was all bare walls and concrete floors and exposed pipes. 

There was no art here, and, it seemed, not a single soul.

It reminded Juno of a hospital.

He hated hospitals.

“You think it’s safe if I call out for him?” he asked, drawing his blaster from his holster.

“I do not know.”

Juno bit his lip. “You think it’s worth risking?”

“No.”

Juno grunted, then pushed forward, ahead of Jet. “Come on.”

The deeper they walked into the basements, the louder the echoing thuds sounded around them. The creaking and the footsteps and the doors opening and closing. Juno kept checking the settings on his blaster and inching around corners.

“I do not mean to offend you when I express distrust towards Ransom.” Jet muttered as they crept onwards. Despite trying to keep quiet, his voice still rumbled loud in Juno’s ears.

Juno sighed. “I’m not offended. I’m just tired of looking at people and having to think of the worst before learning to trust them. I don’t wanna have to defend him every time I want to have a decent conversation. I’ve had enough of the endless backstabbing on Hyperion, Jet.”

The silence hung for a moment, before Jet said, “I see. I will not pester you about it anymore, then.”

Juno smiled up at him. “You really won’t give him a chance?”

“He has one, but he hasn’t taken it.”

They don’t talk from then on, making Juno tense again.

Of course, Jet was right. 

Considering his track record of distrust towards Nureyev, the chip on his shoulder probably shouldn’t even exist. The fact that Nureyev wasn’t the forthcoming type didn’t help either.

But, dammit, if the crew could trust Juno, wouldn’t they trust the people Juno trusted?

And just where the hell was Nureyev?

A fumbling thud from Jet’s footsteps made him jump and curse under his breath. Juno stifled the urge to shout at him for shaving off five years from his life but it was a near thing.

Jet apologized and he let it slide.

Around room ten, Juno felt dread sink slowly down his gut. At their fifteenth, he was seriously starting to get pissed off.

A loud bang had them jolting. Juno bumped into Jet in his surprise. Jet looked down at him and nodded towards the source. 

With another nod, they set a quick jog after it.

They pinned the thuds down to one room, Jet at the door panel, and Juno at the ready by the opening again.

And when the room opened, it was… full of dust and boxes and crates from what he could see with his comms. 

Juno covered his nose, squinting into the room as far as he could. “Ransom?”

There was a sharp sound that whizzed past his ear that had him dropping his comms. “Ow, hey!”

There was a scuffle as Jet pulled him away from the opening and shoved him against the wall beside him.

Juno took a moment to reorient himself. 

He found what seemed to be a sharpened table knife sticking out of the wall behind where he’d stood.

When he grabbed his ear, he wasn’t surprised when he felt something wet. He very carefully didn’t look at it.

“Show yourself!” Jet shouted, finger on the trigger of his own blaster.

“I would love to, really! But maybe I could interest you with a bargain?”

Juno scoffed at both of them and pushed away from the wall to stand by the door. “Ransom! It’s us, Juno and Jet?”

For a moment, Nureyev doesn’t answer. Jet doesn’t lower his blaster or take his finger away from the trigger.

“Done your research, have you? Bold of you to think that Jet Sikuliaq would team up with me, but whoever you are, you have a very convincing impression of a person I know.”

What?

It took him a moment to realize what Nureyev thought he was doing and it… made him feel like he’d just eaten something he shouldn’t have, to be honest.

“Ransom, get out here before I shoot you myself.”

“Oh, detective, it _is_ you!”

Juno scoffed as Nureyev stepped into what meager light came into the room. “Who the hell did you think it was? And why haven’t you—” He laughed, turned around, and started walking back to the entrance of the basement. “You know what? I’ll let you explain yourself to Buddy. C’mon, big guy.”

Nureyev reached out for him. “Juno—”

He raised a hand to stop him. It was shaking. Even in the dark, Nureyev was sure to have spotted it. 

Before he could say anything about it, Juno said, “Save it. Just come with us.”

When they finally make their way up the stairs to the ground floor, Juno’s comms beeped to life.

“ _One. Missed. Call_ ,” it droned.

“Must be Rita,” Juno muttered. He flipped it, keeping a hand on the wall as he continued his trek up.

Rita connected before the first ring even finished.

“ _Mista Steel, Mista Jet?! Are you okay? Oh my gosh, you guys were gone for so long and I could swear I was hearin’ some bangin’ and blastin’ and pew pew pew! Right around your part of the manor!_ ”

“Rita—”

“ _Oh, I was so worried! Hear, can you hear this?_ ” There was some shuffling, then a quick sound, like the comms being pulled away rapidly. “ _My poor little heart is poundin’! I was probably about to go into cardiac arrest or somethin’._ ”

“ _She wasn’t_ ,” came in Vespa’s surly tone.

“ _You don’t know that, Miss V! I coulda— I coulda—_ ”

Knowing Rita was close to tears, Juno brought his hand to his temple and said, “Rita! We’re fine, we have Ransom.”

Buddy hummed. Vespa cursed under her breath.

“ _Ah-ah, no pouting, darling. Hand it over._ ”

“Were you betting on Ransom not coming back?” Juno squawked.

Buddy laughed. “ _Don’t be silly, Juno. We were betting on how far Rita was going to talk until you finally got a word in edgewise._ ”

“How much did you win?” asked Nureyev.

“ _Don’t you worry about it,_ ” Buddy smoothed over. “ _Now that you’re safe, I have to go chart our course somewhere the Ruby can reach. See you all for dinner!_ ”

Their line cut. Rita’s didn’t.

“ _Is it safe for me to come out now? I could wait for you guys at the entrance._ ” Rita said.

Juno shook his head, then remembered that she couldn’t see them. “No, stay put. There weren’t any other smugglers walking around?”

“ _Nope! I think Mista Ransom got all of them!_ ”

“I did what?” Nureyev asked in disbelief.

“Well, just stay put,” Juno answered her, ignoring Nureyev. “I don’t want you getting lost on the way to the entrance. I don’t mean it as an insult, I just want to get home and get some dinner ASAP, alright?”

Rita harrumphed. “ _Fine. You better hurry or I’m eatin’ your favorite snack next.”_

“Right.”

He hung up.

“Juno and I found a room full of the manor’s guards and security officers,” Jet explained, after a moment. “We assumed that upon your escape, you had disposed of them yourself, as well as taken a few of their stolen art.”

“The art is all I can take credit for, I’m afraid.” Nureyev said. There was shuffling, no doubt him revealing a few new trinkets from his pockets. “I’ve no clue how you found all those guards in there.”

Juno couldn’t help it. He cracked, turning to ask, “You sure?”

Nureyev smiled up at him, a misplaced olive branch smile. “Absolutely. I may be a great thief, Juno, but I’m no one-man army. I gave them the slip, stole a bunch of their things, then hid in the basement to plan my escape.”

“Like a mole,” Juno muttered.

“Like someone biding his time,” Nureyev corrected.

He turned back around, thinking it over and stopping himself, then starting again. He didn’t like the uncovered mystery, but he was trying to limit his choices.* Plus, they didn’t have the time nor the resources to spend a few more hours in this manor for him to play detective.

[*Another herculean effort, really. In most cases, Juno’s first instinct was to go with his gut. Bad things happened if he didn’t go with his gut. Considering his last year as a detective though, going with his gut had its pitfalls. Nowadays, poking at holes without thinking of what’s behind them was a bad idea, especially in a ship full of thieves with dodgy pasts.

It was an ongoing effort.]

Focus on the job. 

The job was to retrieve Nureyev. Not to uncover some mysterious person/thing knocking out guards and leaving them in random rooms in a big manor on an asteroid somewhere.

When they reached the surface, a loud thud sounded from above them. Then, it didn’t stop. And it was thudded louder and louder towards the upper staircase.

“Run!” Jet roared.

There was no time to think. All three of them broke out into a sprint.

Juno, knowing the way, led them to Rita’s security room, lagging behind Nureyev and Jet as they went. 

The noises didn’t stop. In fact, it followed them. 

The power cut off again just as the security door opened.

Rita, surprised, let off a shot that, luckily, hit none of them.

“Rita!” Juno shouted in reprimand.

“Sorry! I panicked!”

“Let’s just go,” He shouted, waving her out into the hallway. The noises came closer and closer. “C’mon!”

Rita nearly led the group as she ran. Juno shouted the directions ahead of them. Jet had to grab her last minute when their right turn had her turning left. Nureyev had to grab Juno last minute when he started really lagging behind.

Eventually, they stumbled out into the open, a sprawled panting tangle of limbs as the door held ajar, and the noises stopped.

“It’s a ghost!” Rita shrieked through gulps of breath. “An _actual_ ghost!”

“There is. No such thing. As ghosts,” Juno said adamantly as he tried to catch his breath too. 

“Juno, we’ve dealt with ancient Martians before and ghosts is where you draw the line?” Nureyev asked derisively.

“Well, Grimpotheutis still hasn’t murdered me yet so, yeah! I’m drawing the line at ghosts.” He pushed himself up onto his feet.

“That does not disprove the existence of ghosts,” said Jet.

“What.”

“But I agree with Juno,” he clarified. “There is no such thing as ghosts.”

When Rita eventually caught her breath, she asked, “Well if there ain’t no ghosts, why were we runnin’?”

Juno blinked, then looked at Jet, who didn’t answer and didn’t bother to look at any of them.

“Jet.”

“Yes?”

“Were you scared?”

“Yes.”

Juno stifled the urge to laugh but he couldn’t help his smile. “There you go, Rita. Jet was scared.”

“Oh, my heart’s beatin’ so fast,” Rita said, then brought her comms up and continued as though nothing happened. “Time to go home. I can’t wait to see what Miss V cooked for dinner!”

“Vespa cooked?” Nureyev asked. “What happened while I was gone?”

“Oh, it’s a long story. So, this mornin’ you got kidnapped, right? And we didn’t know…”

* * *

Nureyev let the door slide shut behind him.

After being coddled with food and drink, and thoroughly lectured about kidnapping etiquette* and debriefed about his entire encounter, he felt ready to just lay down and pass out.

[*“Oh, don’t you know?” Buddy asked in a way that was not unlike someone about to tell a wild story at a bonfire. “Every crime family has them.”

“I wasn’t informed there was a pamphlet, Captain,” Nureyev chortled. “What else have I missed?”]

Juno was a lump on the bed, his back to Nureyev in a display of trust that had him thinking he’d done something wrong somehow.

Nureyev bent down to pull his heels off before making his way to the meager setup he had for all his accessories and makeup. The lump stirred ever so slightly as he did but did not speak.

Nureyev shut down the errant guilt in his chest and got a few damp cotton wipes out from the tin. “Turning in early?”

The lump sighed. “No, just needed a quiet place to think.”

“In my bed?”

“Quietest place on the ship when you’re not in it.”

Nureyev snorted. “I reckon it’s the other way around but I don’t think you’ll agree.* So, what thoughts are plaguing that pretty little head of yours?”

[*Juno won’t. Nureyev snored when he slept, and often grunted while dreaming.**

**If a man snored and no one heard it, did he really make a sound, though?]

“Are you sure you want to hear it or are you just being polite?” Juno asked.*

[*This was a system they’d made to make sure they weren’t just zoning out while the other talked, something Nureyev often had problems with.]

“I want to hear it. Do it before I join you though, I might fall asleep.”

The lump that was Juno turned again, this time to lie on his back, facing the ceiling. Nureyev discarded the cotton wipe into his laundry bin and grabbed another.

“Trust is complicated,” Juno started. Nureyev didn’t mean to stop mid-wipe, but it was so rare to hear an admission of vulnerability from the lady that he couldn’t help it. 

“You give it to someone everybody else won’t and suddenly you turn into this defender until you remember that no one’s infallible. You convince yourself it’s not gonna turn out as bad as everyone’s making it out to be, but hey, when you’re on a ship full of thieves, faith is scarce and literally anything could happen.

“I was thinking about that before Jet and I found you earlier. I tried not to. I trust you. But… Even you can’t deny most of what Jet has to say when he says it. Guy’s wiser than Rita on her fifth drink and he’s stone-cold sober.”

Nureyev threw the sullied cotton wipe into the laundry bin with the first one, then set to taking off his accessories.

Juno continued, “I did get a bit upset when I realized you already gave them the slip. When that door opened and you kept trying to convince us you didn’t know us, were you trying to protect us?”

Nureyev put one earring down on the table, then turned to look at Juno. “Is that rhetorical?”

“No.”

Nureyev blinked, staring at Juno as he waited for Nureyev to respond, poking at his double chin as he did.

Nureyev had been nabbed, beaten up, and escaped before the first hour was even up.* The smugglers had asked after him, about his whereabouts. About Juno’s as well, because he’d been nabbed as Duke Rose. 

[*Every professional knew to time themselves remotely, with or without a plan or info. You’ll never know when an opportunity would come up.]

“No,” he answered, before turning back to shoot the earring into his jewelry box along with his ring and Rita’s bracelet. “They harassed Duke Rose about your whereabouts, mostly trying to use you as an in. He certainly wasn’t going to tell them anything but frankly he's awful at lying. And he knew Jet Sikuliaq, but not personally. But don't you worry, they couldn't keep him long enough to get your whereabouts out of him.”

He put his hand on his first aid kit and leaned forward to check at his bruises and wounds. Most of them Juno had handled on the ride back already, the rest Vespa cleaned up.

He grabbed the hot compress and mourned the night without his skin routine.

“So you were.”

Nureyev huffed. It was all he could do to try* to keep the flustered tone out of his voice. “Protecting you is hardly a one size fits all scenario, dear.”

[*And fail.]

“Then why would Duke Rose deny being acquaintances with a galaxy-renowned thief?”

Nureyev leaned away from the mirror but did not look at Juno.

He got you there, said a voice in his mind that sounded suspiciously like Mag. He didn’t tell it to shut up.

He pushed himself up to his feet, unfastening his corset on his way to bed.

“Say, hypothetically, that you’re right,” Nureyev said, mostly because he didn’t want to admit it. “I protected the Carte Blanche’s identity. What got you in a thinking mood?”

Juno’s jaw clenched at that, and Nureyev smiled. He'd deny it till he was blue but he missed that handsome righteousness on Juno's face.

“I see,” he said, throwing his corset off to the side and kneeling down on Juno’s side of the bunk. “So, you’re being huffy about my honor. Oh, my noble detective. How _ever_ shall I fare without your beautifully sharp jaw," he reached out to trace it with a finger, “valiantly protecting my honor from these cruel hooligans.”

Juno snorted. “Shut up. It just isn’t fair, alright? You’re already doing your part and they still won’t believe in you. It’s stupid.”

Nureyev clicked his tongue, slithering up against the length of him in his bunk. “You’ve got a lot yet to learn, dear.”

“Don't patronize me, Nureyev,” Juno grumbled, lifting his arms to accommodate him into the bunk.

Nureyev gladly leaned into his space and ducked down for a kiss.

Juno scrunched up his nose but met him halfway.

It was soft, chaste. All their kisses were, these days. It was the insistence for going slow, despite the warm press of each other in the dark that pushed the heavy feeling from his chest.

Juno grunted, pulling away.

“What?”

“Did you shower?”

Nureyev blinked and very carefully did not go to sniff himself. “Do I smell that bad?”

“Kinda.”

“Oh, well,” he sat back up again. “Let’s see if I can manage without having to wet my face. I will be sleeping when I get back if you don’t mind. Getting kidnapped is quite the drain.”

“Yeah, sure. I might doze off myself.”

Nureyev slipped into his slippers, then leaned down to drop a kiss on Juno’s forehead. “Try not to hog all the blankets while I’m gone.”

“No promises. Good night, babe.”

“Good night, dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> and there you have it, i hope you enjoyed this little Romp! [josh from let's game it out voice] i hope you had fun, i know i did. 
> 
> if y'all need to find us, here are our socials:  
> \- mine: [carrd](https://stubbornjerk.carrd.co)  
> \- jeannette: [her account](https://twitter.com/entropyre), [the tweet ](https://twitter.com/entropyre/status/1323344437150363649)  
> \- clover: [their account](https://twitter.com/deityhearted), the tweet (to follow)
> 
> comments on the art, the fic, and the weird spooky manor in the greek belt are greatly appreciated!!! and go check all the other works in the collection out! if you look out, you might see my art in there somewhere.


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